If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms.

As political change sweeps the streets and squares, the parliaments and presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been looking at an upheaval a little closer to home—in the sexual lives of men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society.

Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future.

This is no peep show or academic treatise but a highly personal and often humorous account of one woman’s journey to better understand Arab society at its most intimate and, in the process, to better understand her own origins. Rich with five years of groundbreaking research, Sex and the Citadel gives us a unique and timely understanding of everyday lives in a part of the world that is changing before our eyes.

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**Kirkus Best Books of the Year (2013)**

If you really want to know a people, start by looking inside their bedrooms.

As political change sweeps the streets and squares, the parliaments and presidential palaces of the Arab world, Shereen El Feki has been looking at an upheaval a little closer to home—in the sexual lives of men and women in Egypt and across the region. The result is an informative, insightful, and engaging account of a highly sensitive and still largely secret aspect of Arab society.

Sex is entwined in religion, tradition, politics, economics, and culture, so it is the perfect lens through which to examine the complex social landscape of the Arab world. From pregnant virgins to desperate housewives, from fearless activists to religious firebrands, from sex work to same-sex relations, Sex and the Citadel takes a fresh look at the sexual history of the region and brings new voices to the debate over its future.

This is no peep show or academic treatise but a highly personal and often humorous account of one woman’s journey to better understand Arab society at its most intimate and, in the process, to better understand her own origins. Rich with five years of groundbreaking research, Sex and the Citadel gives us a unique and timely understanding of everyday lives in a part of the world that is changing before our eyes.

From the Hardcover edition.

Sobre o Autor

Shereen El Feki is a writer, broadcaster, and academic who started her professional life in medical science before going on to become an award-winning journalist with The Economist and a presenter with Al Jazeera English. She is former vice-chair of the UN's Global Commission on HIV and the Law, as well as a TED Global Fellow. Shereen writes for a number of publications, among them the Huffington Post. With roots in Egypt and Wales, Shereen grew up in Canada; she now divides her time between London and Cairo.

Avaliações mais úteis de consumidores na Amazon.com

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3,9 de 5 estrelas
41 avaliações

Mary B. Stewart

5,0 de 5 estrelasStrangely Familiar Sex Lives.

23 de abril de 2013 - Publicada na Amazon.com

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If someone wrote about sex in the Western world, I would want it to be Shereen El Feki. El Feki's familiarity with both Egypt and the West has made her the perfect guide to the strangely familiar world of the Middle East bedroom. Rather than take a critical view of the region or treat the region with kid gloves by denying any problems that arise from cultural attitudes, she frankly seeks out Arabs who are dealing with the sexual life of the region and frankly lays out the situation. Though there are a lot of sexual hangups in the Arab world, it is far from neutered. There are a plethora of groups trying to transform Egypt and the Arab region politically, socially, and sexually. What is most remarkable about El Feki's take on Arabl sexuality is that it is viewed as a part of a larger society, which just like the West, is always in flux.

I would recommend this book for the curious and for anyone who enjoys reading about sexuality.

5,0 de 5 estrelasFascinating. A must read for anyone interested in politics in the Arab world, and in the rights of women and LGBT people.

2 de março de 2014 - Publicada na Amazon.com

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We read this for our February 2014 Feminist Bookgroup book choice, nominating it after several of us heard the author on NPR's Fresh Air (interview is archived and can be heard online.)

As usual with our book choices, there were a variety of reactions, which is part of the richness of being in a book group.

My own reaction? I liked the mix of facts, anecdotes from individuals, and analysis. I'm amazed at what she was able to uncover in these closed societies, and her looks back at a dramatically different past. The book was far more than I expected. I was particularly surprised and interested in the political aspects - the reverberations of colonialism and backlash against the perception of the "West" and "western" ideas. Lots to think about in this book, especially if one cares about the rights of women and those who are LGBT.

Shereen El Feki handles this topic with sensitivity, poise, and wonder. I was expecting the cliche trope - a world exoticized, an entire people pigeon-holed, a discussion of sex based purely on the stereotypes - but she does absolutely none of this.

First introducing the topic's touchy context to us in a way we can easily appreciate, she then discusses the problematic facets of intimate life in the Arab world - at once framing her findings and arguments in terms of colonialism, inferiority complexes, societal pressures, poverty, virginity, homosexuality, and marriage.

I appreciate El Feki not only for bringing this book to us in a critical time, but for providing a clear, necessary voice to navigate the tangled terrain of the Arab world. I bought this book before heading to Beirut for the summer and read it while sitting on my balcony in rural Lebanon. As a Lebanese-American living in the midst of "a changing Arab world," I found El Feki's work to be spot on - both accurate and precise - sound, well-researched, and presented with delicacy and respect.

The author is a brave and brilliant woman, and I am so happy to have found this book. El Feki - from Beirut with love - THANK you for writing this! Please write more; you have a new lifetime fan!

5,0 de 5 estrelasIf you liked 'The 19th wife', you will love this book

6 de maio de 2013 - Publicada na Amazon.com

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Just as the Mormon novel, Shereen el Feki's book has introduced me to a culture through emotional, intimate stories focusing on the most personal of relations. I had not really thought much about women in the Middle East before and am pleased to have downloaded the book. And unlike the 19th wife, the ending is more satisfying.The writing is witty, and I am sure once you've read it, you will join the ranks of those who want to have met the grandmother, whose frank remarks make you both laugh and cringe.

3,0 de 5 estrelasThe number of words in this tome (vasta mole superbus) could have been cut in half, with no diminution.

9 de julho de 2016 - Publicada na Amazon.com

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Ways that this book could have been made better:

1. These chapters are fabulously long. The longest one is 62 pages. The book would have been fine if it were broken up into a smaller number of chapters.2. It might have been better if the book spent one chapter on some selected sample of countries. (We know that there should not be much difference between Saudi and Yemen. And the UAE might be different to Egypt, since 83% of the population of the former is foreign.) Each of these representative countries could have had a few subsections. (Marriages. Prostitution. Gay Scene. Current trends. HIV rates.) It's not that the book needed to be turned into an epidemiological study, nor a textbook. But some type of consistency would have been nice for purposes of cross comparison. For instance: Egypt is mostly Sunni. How might this notion of temporary marriage work in a majority Shia country? (Iraq. Bahrain.)3. This book spent a lot of time around Egypt. Egypt is not the same thing as Yemen and Saudi. If someone didn't know that, they would run the risk of making a fallacy of composition type mistake.4. The number of words in this tome (vasta mole superbus) could have been cut in half, with no diminution.5. A glossary would have been nice.

What did we learn? Not really all that much for the sheer volume of words.

1. The Arabs *really* like butt-sex. A LOT. Anal sex seems to come up every fifth page or so in this book.2. There are many different types of marriage. Real marriage. Beard marriages (a gay man marries a woman). Marriages that are entered into for a fixed duration in order to get around prostitution restrictions.3. The Arab men like to use their fists on their women. (We already knew this, but this author took the trouble to document it.)4. A lot of marriages are between first cousins. (Gross.)5. There are a lot of things that you can find anywhere else in the world in the Arab world. (At least in Egypt.) Guys on the Down Low. Men that are bored with their wives and seek external release. Gay conversion therapy.

A lot of this stuff strains credulity

1. The Arab world used to be a den of iniquity, but then when Islam came the transformation from libertine to prig was 100% complete.2. Egypt is representative of the rest of the Arab world. The author cites the International Sex Guide in this book. And if you look at the Middle East/ North Africa, you will find that there are some places with a reasonable Pay for Play scene (Egypt/UAE) and there are other places that are a desert in the sexual sense of the word (Yemen).